VANCOUVER - Under a new government policy, former government aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk would have been required to repay some of the $6 million in legal fees they racked up before pleading guilty to accepting bribes.

Attorney-General Shirley Bond announced Thursday the provincial government will adopt all the recommendations of the independent review of its legal indemnity policy made by Stephen Toope, the president of the University of B.C. and former dean of McGill University's faculty of law.

"We'll take immediate action to change the current policy to reflect all of these recommendations, since it's essential we have a consistent and fair approach that protects public servants and the interests of taxpayers," Bond said in a statement.

Toope was appointed last May by then attorney-general Barry Penner to review the history and purpose of the indemnity arrangements for B.C. civil servants, and to make recommendations.

He said that civil servants who plead guilty or are convicted of criminal acts arising from their employment should be required to repay their legal fees.

"There should be indemnification of civil servants up to the guilty plea and time of guilt," Toope, who is in India with the Premier Christy Clark's trade mission, explained by phone at a news conference in Vancouver.

He said the Basi-Virk case was an unusual "outlier" case, noting that on average the government pays $27,000 indemnity for a case.

Between 1999 and 2011, the government paid $11.4 million for 95 cases, he said.

Toope's review was prompted by public outrage over Basi and Virk pleading guilty and the government picking up the $6-million cost of their legal bills for the political corruption case, which dragged on for years in the courts.

The senior Liberal aides entered surprise guilty pleas on Oct. 18, 2010, to two counts each of breach of trust and accepting benefits in exchange for leaking confidential information about the BC Rail bidding process in 2003 to one of the bidders.

Toope said Thursday that the decision to pick up the legal bills for Basi and Virk was made "at the high levels of the civil service" and is being probed by the auditor-general's ministry, which is expected to complete its audit by the end of the year.

New Democrat justice critic Leonard Krog earlier called the decision to pay for the Basi-Virk defence lawyers a "sweetheart deal" because it shut down a trial that was embarrassing the Liberal government.

Toope pointed out that his report "is not primarily about Basi and Virk" but looked at the issue of there being no clear formal indemnification policy, which was formed by past practice.

Toope recommended the government adopt a new policy that is publicly available, setting out the criteria and process for paying the legal fees for public servants.

The purpose of the indemnity policy is to protect non-union employees and cover their costs in legal actions arising from their employment.

nhall@vancouversun.com

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Basi and Virk would have been required to repay some of the $6 million in legal fees under new recommendations

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